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If you’ve been reading Buckeye RINO since its inception, then you probably know how I feel about the gambling industry. I’m totally against it. I’m even against state lotteries. I don’t even play bingo or buy raffle tickets . . . even for charity. If I feel like contributing money to a charity, I’ll do it as a straight up donation rather than as an entry into a game of chance. I’ve written many times about how the gambling industry is a fraud industry. All the marketing for gambling tells you that you have chances to win. The truth is, the house always wins. This means, in the aggregate, gamblers lose. Right now the media is fixated on the fraud that was Trump University. It would be helpful if the media would also fixate on the even bigger fraud that the gambling industry perpetrates. Hey media! . . . want to go after Trump University? Fine. How about going after Trump casinos, too? How about going after all the casinos no matter who they’re owned by? After all, the more money consumers spend on gambling, the less money they have for anything worthwhile. Gambling redistributes wealth in the wrong direction. Gambling feeds economic contraction. Gambling compromises lawenforcement, especially casinos, for casinos are used for money laundering. The sad tales of those few consumers who complained about the value of their education at Trump University pale in comparison to the sad tales of those who have lost so much more at casinos. Leave it to the media to strain at gnats and swallow camels.

Why should we be surprised that Trump cannot admit that Trump University is a fraud? Why should we be astonished that Trump lashed out at a judge, any judge, for releasing information about suits being pursued against Trump University? Casino owners would never admit that they perpetrate fraud and that an important part of their business is laundering money. Deflect, deflect, deflect. Trump has called into question the bias of the judge because of the judge’s Mexican heritage. Guess what? If the judge had been a white Presbyterian New York Republican male, like Trump, the strategy would still have been to deflect, deflect, deflect. The demographic background of the judge wouldn’t have saved any judge from Trump’s attacks so long as the judge did something that met with Trump’s disapproval. Remember that casino owners are special people with special rights. Casino owners are entitled to more than the average citizen. When it comes to public servants such as judges and legislators, casino owners view them with contempt because either they are contemptible because they can be bought or they are contemptible because they can’t be bought. Gambling buys politicians. Remember why Trump has donated to Hillary Clinton in the past? Because Trump buys all the politicians that he can. He finds that contemptible. Trump self-funded his primary campaign to show that he could not be bought like Hillary. But then there are other public servants, like the judge in this Trump University case, who can’t be bought or persuaded, who, since they stand in Trump’s way, they are also to be treated with contempt.

What is novel about this election cycle is that casino owners in the past were donors to political campaigns. They weren’t politicians, themselves. Donald Trump is now a politician. He’s on the ballot. A casino owner’s business is a sleazy one, which makes running for office quite a dicey proposition, as it’s hard to dismiss the sleaze factor when the political opposition puts a target on one’s back. I think the fact that Hillary Clinton was anointed as the inevitable Democrat nominee emboldened Trump to run. I think if the undisputed Democrat frontrunner were trustworthy, ethical, and incorruptible, Trump would have stayed away from the presidential race.

My disparagement of Trump should not be mistaken for support for Clinton. I believe Ambassador Stevens is dead because someone in the administration wanted him dead. The terrorists who took him out in Benghazi acted on information. Clinton didn’t safeguard information. I find it telling that at a Cheryl Mills deposition (Mills being a chief operative of Hillary Clinton’s), not only did Mills have three attorneys there to help her navigate the interrogation, there were also two attorneys for the State department and two attorneys for the Justice department, meaning that a lot hinged upon what was permitted to be asked and how minimal the responses needed to be. In other words, if Cheryl Mills had been inclined to freely answer truthfully about every last detail, the integrity of the State department and the integrity of the Justice department would have been impugned just as much as the integrity of Hillary Clinton. Mills had to walk a tightrope. She wanted to keep all of the information to herself, but she had to make at least a minimal effort to appear that she was cooperating. We’ve only been given transcripts of the deposition, for the judge agreed that video would have been too politically damaging to the Clinton campaign. The State department is putting on a charade that they are cooperating. They allowed the inspector general report to come out (but if State were really on top of things, they would have had an inspector general in office throughout Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, but, instead, there was never an inspector general at State for the whole of Clinton’s tenure there). The Justice department is putting on a charade by conducting an investigation (but if the FBI, a branch of Justice, is doing the questioning, why were two lawyers from Justice present to make certain that the FBI’s inquiries were limited and make certain that Mill’s responses were also limited?). Just now, the media is starting to learn that archived footage and transcripts of official press conferences at the White House and at State have been doctored so that future historians would only able to cobble together a revised history. I think Ambassador Stevens was the type of person who personally understood shady things were going on and also personally disliked that he had to put up with them. I think someone in the Obama administration figured that they’d rather have a dead Ambassador Stevens than a whistleblower Ambassador Stevens. I think Edward Snowden is convinced that the Obama administration would have preferred a dead Edward Snowden than a whistleblower Edward Snowden, because Snowden didn’t blow the whistle until he was safely away. I think if Hillary Clinton is elected to office, the corruption of the federal government will only worsen. We’ve seen the IRS politicized, the FBI politicized, the State department politicized; and the list will go on.

I will not vote for Hillary Clinton; I guarantee that. I’m hoping that Bernie Sanders will succeed in his quest to wrest the Democrat nomination away from Hillary. I also don’t plan to vote for Trump, though I see a silver lining if he were to be elected (a shake-up of the establishment). Especially if there’s no Bernie in the equation (but maybe even if there is), I will probably vote for a minor party candidate, which is not unprecedented for me. I vote my conscience.

The heyday of this blog was a few years ago when I had my hands less full of things to do, thus more time to write. I don’t post new blog articles as much as I used to. Imagine my surprise to see that my blog traffic is actually on the rise despite my relative silence. I guess people are really, really, really interested in the elections this cycle. When I look to see what is driving traffic to Buckeye RINO, I see people are digging up my endorsements in past election cycles, particularly in races lower on the ballot than the race for POTUS. I’m sorry all you readers who came to Buckeye RINO only to find news about years past and very little about this year.

For this primary election, the only local endorsement I’ll make is that I support Michele Silva Arredondo for Lorain County Common Pleas Court judge on the GOP ballot. I’ll remain silent on all the other local and state races.

In the GOP race for POTUS, I endorse John Kasich, and in the Democrat race, I endorse Bernie Sanders.

I’ve been hesistant to endorse a GOP candidate for U.S. President. In a blog article much earlier on in this election cycle, I chronicled how no candidate in either party excited me, and this is still the case. It seemed to me, on the GOP side, that as soon as I pick a favorite, my favorite drops out and then I have to search out another favorite, so I hope my endorsement, at this date, is not the kiss of death for John Kasich. For a while, I favored Bobby Jindal, then Rand Paul, then Carly Fiorina, then Ben Carson. Each has exited the stage.

I’ve had some beefs with Kasich. If you dig through Buckeye RINO, you’ll see some of my criticisms. But when I reflect upon my biggest disagreements with Kasich as governor, a number of those disagreements are about education. Education is a big issue when one is governor, but there are bigger fish to fry as President of the United States, one of which is the national debt that has our nation perched atop a crumbling economic precipice. Kasich balances budgets. Yes, it took government shutdowns during the Clinton administration to force the White House to accept the budgets, but it stuck. Ted Cruz has caused government shutdowns in the name of good fiscal policy, too, but Cruz doesn’t know how to remain friends within his own caucus. With Kasich’s government shutdowns, his colleagues were still his friends, which means that Kasich is better poised to identify a Congressional coalition that will help him govern as U.S. President.

Cruz actually made me angry when his staff pulled a stunt during the Iowa caucuses claiming that Ben Carson was dropping out. Cruz operatives apparently pulled the same stunt this past Tuesday in Hawaii at the expense of Marco Rubio. In these and other instances of dirty tricks, Cruz was very lawyerly in defending his campaign. How Clintonesque. What a turnoff.

See the little search window at the top of the left sidebar on Buckeye RINO? If you type in the search term “gambling,” you’ll see that I despise gambling. Trump, being the casino tycoon that he is, wasn’t likely to get my nod for nominee, anyway. Also, I have decried religious intolerance before, so when both Cruz and Trump harp on and on against Muslims, they are not winning any points with me. As for the flap about Trump somehow being in cahoots with the KKK, I think that’s all manufactured by the desperate. I fail to see past Trump conduct that fits with this seemingly manufactured narrative. If I see conduct from Trump in the future that smacks of racism, I’d be happy to call it out, but I fail to see such a pattern thus far.

Marco Rubio has revealed himself to be a candidate of the donor class, not a candidate of the grassroots.

Having said all of that, in November, I’ll vote for any of the Republicans over Hillary Clinton, should she be the Democrat nominee.

Democrat voters in 2008 made the right decision in nominating Barack Obama, notwithstanding I voted against him in November of 2008 and 2012. Yes, I disagree with much (but not all) that our current POTUS has done and is trying to do. Some have said he’s the worst president in history, but I’d have to disagree. There’ve been worse. Hillary Clinton, had she won it all in 2008, would have been worse. Bernie Sanders would be a far more ethical, far less corrupt president than Hillary Clinton would.

DOJ politicized under Obama? You bet. IRS politicized under Obama? You bet. But while Obama claimed that the IRS was a phony scandal perpetrated by a bad actor or two with no connection to the White House, I could easily envision an emboldened President Hillary Clinton issuing a charge to the DOJ and the IRS to take down the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that menaces her and the country (or at least menaces her plans for the country). With Obama, there’s denial. With Clinton, she’d be justifying it.

One may wonder: How can a right-of-center blogger favor Obama and Sanders over Clinton when they are further to the political left than Clinton? My reply would be that I sense that Hillary is capable of far more heinous treachery. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is further to the left of Clinton, too, but if I had a choice between Warren and Clinton, I’d take Warren. As for Sanders’ socialism, I would just note that the political pendulum swings back and forth. Socialism won’t take firm root before it is out of vogue again. In the meantime, Sanders is more honest than our current president, more honest than many of the GOP candidates, and far more honest than Clinton. We could use some cleaning up of Beltway ethics, and I think Sanders could deliver on that front. Depending on the GOP nominee, there is a possibility I could vote for Sanders in November if he were the Democrat nominee. It depends on how dirty politics looks by then and how squeaky-clean Sanders looks by comparison when election time draws near.

A Sanders presidency may clean up corruption, whereas a Clinton presidency will maintain the status quo, letting the corruption continue. You can see it in the New Hampshire Democrat primary exit poll data that showed that it is the privileged Democrats who will benefit from a Clinton presidency. The only group of Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire were those who thought the country was headed in the right direction, who were not worried about the economy, who had not felt betrayed by their government or their political party, and whose annual income exceeded $200,000. Voters in subsequent primaries and caucuses should take note: If you are unhappy with the way things are right now, Hillary is not your candidate. She is there to do the bidding of the privileged Democrats who donate to her: Maintain the status quo. These privileged Clinton Democrats don’t have much in common, demographically, with the rest of the Democrat Party. The Clinton Democrats are the ones who pull all the levers within the party machine (hence the “superdelegates”), they often have prestigious titles working in America’s universities, liberal think tanks, non-profit organizations, and crony-capitalist businesses such as those on Wall Street. These people, if they get in trouble, they get bailed out. That’s who Clinton represents. If that description doesn’t fit you, then you have no business voting for her. Clinton and some media types have said what a wonderful thing the Democrat primary race where voters have two good choices and the candidates see eye-to-eye on most issues. This is a lie. The difference between who Sanders is and what he represents and who Clinton is and what she represents is huge. To me, it is the difference between broad sunlight (Sanders) and a dark alley (Clinton).

When I was a young boy (3rd grade), my career ambition was to be a U.S. Ambassador to France. With that thought in mind, I majored in international studies at Ohio State. Nowadays, my field of specialty is teaching English to speakers of other languages. When I contemplate the death of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, along with the deaths of three others at the hands of terrorists, it gives me chills. The terrorists acted upon information. For all I know, the information the terrorists acted upon came from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for she did not safeguard top-secret information, including information about U.S. assets and personnel abroad. Looking at events leading up to those deaths–where it seems that security vulnerabilities were deliberately overlooked–and looking at events unfold after mischief was clearly afoot in Benghazi–where it seems that the opportunity to evacuate was doable but somehow deliberately nixed–I can only arrive at the conclusion that Stevens’ death was the desired outcome. Was he a man who knew too much? Even if his death were merely due to Clinton’s negligence, rather than malfeasance, it is still too much for me to stomach. If I were a U.S. Ambassador to anywhere, I’d want the U.S. government to have my back.

Hillary Clinton tried to rig the elections in 2008, but Barack Obama outsmarted her. She has outdone herself this time around, with nearly every superdelegate handpicked for their loyalty to her. The election on the Democrat side is rigged. Only rank-and-flle Democrat voters have the power to throw a monkey wrench into her machine, and I hope they’ll do just that.

As for a brokered GOP convention, I do not favor the pandemonium that Mitt Romney seems to invite. If Trump has the delegates, then he’s the nominee. If Trump goes on to lose the election, then the establishment can engage in party-building after that (and get in touch with the grassroots) and make a push for redemption. If Trump goes on to win the election and the establishment still cannot make amends with him and thus will not allow him to be their standard-bearer going forward, then found a new political party and recruit elected Republican legislators across the country to switch to this new party starting in January. If this new party succeeds well enough at this recruitment, it could conceivably enact laws in many states that would grant major-party status to their new creation. If we’re to have a falling out, let’s have it then, after January, in the broad light of day. Make new rules then. Don’t bend and break rules midstream this July in some smoke-filled convention backroom to thwart a vast array of voters.

I hope that Ohio will do the right thing. Kasich for the Republicans. Sanders for the Democrats. Make November a sweeter pill to swallow.

I am Daniel Jack Williamson, a graduate of The Ohio State University, a native of Ohio, a Republican voter, and a former Republican candidate. My moniker, "Buckeye RINO," is a hat-tip to my fellow conservatives who think I'm not Republican enough.